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Some customers salty they were billed during fire evacuation of Boulder bistro

By Mitchell Byars

Staff Writer

Posted:
07/05/2017 05:06:23 PM MDT

Updated:
07/06/2017 09:25:45 AM MDT

Bradford Heap is the owner and chef at Salt the Bistro in downtown Boulder. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)

The owner of Salt the Bistro in downtown Boulder said he is paying back all of the customers who were affected by a fire and evacuation at the restaurant last week, but some customers were upset they were billed at all while evacuations were pending.

Friday's fire started in a kitchen hood at the restaurant, which is located at 1047 Pearl St., according to Boulder Chief Fire Marshal Dave Lowrey.

"It was just a small kitchen hood fire," he said. "Some of the grease up in the hood caught fire."

While Lowrey said the fire did not create much smoke, the restaurant was evacuated as a precaution.

Bradford Heap, the owner and chef at Salt, said he has tried to contact all of the diners who were in the restaurant at the time to try and get them gift cards to make up for their meals being interrupted.

"I take great pride in my integrity," he said. "I'm trying to make customers for life."

But some diners did not like the way the situation was initially handled. Ernesto Acevedo-Munoz wrote a letter to the Daily Camera expressing his displeasure with how the restaurant handled the situation.

Acevedo-Munoz said he and his friend, Kathleen Kryczka, had just gotten their entrees when they realized there was a fire in the building.

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"We noticed something was wrong when we saw a fire truck come up on the street," he said. "But nothing was obviously immediately wrong inside the restaurant. There was no sense of emergency until a few minutes later when our server came up."

Acevedo-Munoz said that the server presented them with a bill and asked them to pay for their meal right away in case they were evacuated. He initially gave the server his card, but then felt he should not have to pay since he was being evacuated before he could finish his meal. He also was surprised that the server was taking the time to make them pay their bill during a fire that was serious enough to prompt an evacuation.

"I said I was not happy with that," Acevedo-Munoz said. "If there is a fire danger, then we have to get out of here. So I didn't sign my statement."

But Acevedo-Munoz said he checked the next day and saw that his credit card had been charged for the full price of the meal, which was for about $118.

"That upset me more, and why I suggested that the management was putting profit over safety," he said. "If there was a danger, we should have been told to quietly and quickly walk out of the building and forget everything else."

Heap said neither he nor anyone on his management team instructed servers to make sure to collect payment on the bills before the evacuation.

"If anybody got a bill, that wasn't directed by me or anyone on my management level," he said.

But Acevedo-Munoz said he was skeptical of that.

"I seriously doubt the servers would instinctively go take people their bills because there might be a fire," he said.

Kryczka also said when they expressed their concerns to a manager, he told them that the last time they had a fire they lost a lot of money. When she talked to the same manager on the phone later, she said he was extremely rude.

"He kind of mocked me on the phone," Kryczka said. "Trust me, I'm sorry they had a fire; that sucks. But he was very rude, and that was the worst of it all."

Heap said he did hear from Kryczka about a rude employee and said he was going to talk to him.

"We need to enforce that the customer is always right," Heap said.

Acevedo-Munoz said as of yet he hasn't gotten a call from the restaurant about refunding him, but did add that he was a walk-in customer. Heap said he has placed calls to all of the customers with reservations that he had numbers for, but was still trying to track down some of the walk-ins.

"I'm trying to do the best I can with my business, and sometimes it is difficult to handle all of these things," Heap said. "I'm doing my best to try and take care of everybody."

Acevedo-Munoz said in his letter he would not be dining at Salt again. He said he doesn't know how he would react to being called and offered a gift card.

"I would give them an earful, thank them and then determine if I'm going to use it or not," Acevedo-Munoz said. "It might be too little, too late."

As for Kryczka, she said she has heard from Heap and said he was very kind and apologetic, so she might consider going back as long as the manager she dealt with wasn't there.

"I don't know if I'm soured or not, knowing they put profits first over safety," Kryczka said. "It could be a poor manager, so I don't want to blame the whole restaurant."

"It's not the end of the world," she added. "But it just seemed like it was handled really poorly."

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